Irish Noir is the story of Irish Crime fiction. From its gothic origins, through the fast paced storylines provided by Celtic Tiger excess – and right up to the bleak fictional landscape inspired by Austerity Ireland

In the last 15 years, Irish crime writing has experienced a renaissance in popularity comparable to the Scandinavian and Scottish crime writing scenes. But before that, Irish crime writing was in the doldrums. Irish Noir is a major new four-part series presented by John Kelly, which will explore why it took so long for this popular genre to get a comfortable footing in this country. To what extent did politics and history play a part? And did the enormous success of Irish literary giants like Joyce and Beckett cloud the ambitions of writers who might have naturally had more hard-boiled aspirations...? In other words, did we turn our literary noses up at crime fiction?

This will be a must-listen series for all bookworms, featuring contributions from the biggest names in our country’s crime writing scene – John Connolly, John Banville, Tana French, Declan Burke, Declan Hughes, Arlene Hunt, Alex Barclay, and Stuart Neville to name but a few...

Irish Noir was made in conjunction with the BAI’s Sound and Vision fund. It starts on RTÉ Radio 1 at 7pm on Saturday September 14th.

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Irish Noir

This first part of Irish Noir takes a look into the peculiar gothic origins of the crime genre in Ireland. We consider the earliest texts from our first authors to write crime stories, including Sheridan Le Fanu, LT Meade and Oscar Wilde. But we’ll also be delving into the real world surrounding these writers, a place where forensic detection was in its infancy, and a country in conflict where strongly held beliefs in superstition and fairy magic lead to bloody murder.

John Kelly is joined by Ian Campbell Ross, former professor of literature at Trinity College Dublin; Angela Bourke, author and Emeritus professor of Irish Studies at University College Dublin and Ian Gargan, medical doctor and criminal psychologist.

After a degree in law at Queen’s University Belfast, John joined the BBC and went on to win two EMA awards and a SONY Gold Award for his various music/arts/documentary radio and television programmes with the BBC, UTV and Channel 4.

After 12 long years of all that, he moved to Dublin in 1997 to present the groundbreaking Eclectic Ballroom on what was then called Radio Ireland. He was then lured across town to RTÉ to present The Mystery Train where he won both the PPI Award for Music Broadcaster of the Year, a serious cult following and the public praise of Bono, Edge and regular co-host Elvis Costello. With the train now in a siding, he currently presents the PPI Award winning John Kelly Ensemble on RTÉ lyric fm and Radio Clash on RTÉ 2XM. He also presents The Works on RTÉ Television. Assorted specials and documentaries include From Hell's Kitchen to Hollywood - written and presented by John.

John has contributed to numerous publications including a five year stint at the Irish Times, and, over the years, he has interviewed many leading figures in the music and arts world.

He has also written several works of fiction including The Little Hammer and Sophisticated Boom Boom, both published by Jonathan Cape. His radio play The Pipes, starring Barry McGovern, was broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1. Short stories have recently appeared in The Stinging Fly and Silver Threads of Hope. A new novel, From Out of The City, will be published by the prestigious US publisher Dalkey Archive in March 2014.

Sinead Egan biography

Sinead Egan joined RTÉ as a radio producer in 2005, and since then has worked in both RTÉ Radio 1 and RTÉ 2fm, on programmes including The Gerry Ryan Show, The Tubridy Show and The Marian Finucane Show.

Irish Noir is her first project for RTÉ Radio Features. She also produces CountryWide RTÉ Radio 1.

Before coming to RTÉ, Sinead was a news reporter with Today FM and TV3, and a feature writer and columnist with the Irish Independent.

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